Apple gives a new meaning to solid state.

In article , Alan Browne says...
OS X is a much simpler system for the user than Windows. S/W
installation is much more straightforward.

Very easy to install SW under MS Windows as well. Just double click on the .exe
installer and the software will do everything for you.

There is no cruft like
anti-virus needed.

There are really no viruses for the Mac? If the Macs had the same market share
as MS Windows, they would face the same virus problems.

MS started at around $140 - per machine). Removing
software from a Mac is (in almost all cases) as simple as dropping the
app in the trash.

Same under MS Windows.

There is none of the Microsoft ransom to upgrade the OS every few years
(Apple was $20 and that was good for all the Macs in your house - I have
3 here. Now it is zero. And with my new iMac they threw in iWork for
free too (eg: Apple's "Office" - not as complete as MS Office but quite
good)).

MS Windows costs only 30 Euro and you pay this amount every four years or so.
It's peanuts.

snip

Just not worth the pain. (Vista and Win 8 being two very good reasons
to stay the hell away from Windows - WinXP was very decent and Win 7
(from the little use I've made of it)).

I've used Vista for years without problems and have no switched to Win 8 (with
the Classic Shell, to get an Win XP or 7 user interface), again without
problems. If you get rid of the tiles user interface, Win 8 is fine.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On 2013-10-26 22:25:35 +0000, Alfred Molon said:

In article , Sandman says...
Much like a Bugatti Veyron is another "steering wheel-based car" like Ford
Focus and VW Beetle.

But MS Windows 8, 7 and even Vista are not bad OSes. They are good enough and
easy to use. I don't think a Mac OS is that much better.

Then you think wrong.

Even for us Mac users the latest version of OSX, OSX9 the performance
improvement is tangible. It took quite a hefty nudge to get me to move
from OSX 6, or "Snow Leopard" which many had stuck to as a stable
release, and for many had been considered Apple's XP. I am quite
impressed with the performance improvement I have experienced by
upgrading my OSX6 to OSX9.

I think you should actually use, or test drive some of the latest Mac
offerings, you might be surprised. You will have fewer oil stains on
your living room floor from all that tinkering under the hood you
engage in, but you will have a smoother and problem free computing
experience.
....if that is the sort of thing you are looking for, if not continue
with what you are doing.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

In article 2013102615433175251-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom,
says...

On 2013-10-26 22:25:35 +0000, Alfred Molon said:

In article , Sandman says...
Much like a Bugatti Veyron is another "steering wheel-based car" like Ford
Focus and VW Beetle.

But MS Windows 8, 7 and even Vista are not bad OSes. They are good enough and
easy to use. I don't think a Mac OS is that much better.

Then you think wrong.

Even for us Mac users the latest version of OSX, OSX9 the performance
improvement is tangible. It took quite a hefty nudge to get me to move
from OSX 6, or "Snow Leopard" which many had stuck to as a stable
release, and for many had been considered Apple's XP. I am quite
impressed with the performance improvement I have experienced by
upgrading my OSX6 to OSX9.

I think you should actually use, or test drive some of the latest Mac
offerings, you might be surprised. You will have fewer oil stains on
your living room floor from all that tinkering under the hood you
engage in, but you will have a smoother and problem free computing
experience.
...if that is the sort of thing you are looking for, if not continue
with what you are doing.

Would you be kind enough to tell me what problems I am having with
Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 that I would avoid with Apple? Not
problems that you read about in some advertising copy from Apple but
real problems that real people have in the real world?

On 2013-10-26 22:53:39 +0000, Tony Cooper said:

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:43:31 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2013-10-26 22:25:35 +0000, Alfred Molon said:

In article , Sandman says...
Much like a Bugatti Veyron is another "steering wheel-based car" like Ford
Focus and VW Beetle.

But MS Windows 8, 7 and even Vista are not bad OSes. They are good enough and
easy to use. I don't think a Mac OS is that much better.

Then you think wrong.

Even for us Mac users the latest version of OSX, OSX9 the performance
improvement is tangible. It took quite a hefty nudge to get me to move
from OSX 6, or "Snow Leopard" which many had stuck to as a stable
release, and for many had been considered Apple's XP. I am quite
impressed with the performance improvement I have experienced by
upgrading my OSX6 to OSX9.

When you say better performance, how is that demonstrated?

It might be some sort of placebo effect of having something new to play
with, but there is a "snappier" feel to the way various apps function.
I believe this has much to do with the way OSX9 manages its usage of
available RAM. To me, Apps seem to open faster and run smoother.

What are you doing when you see better performance?

Other than the basic tasks such as web browsing, and checking on News
Groups the most tangible performance improvement for me has been with
PS CS6. When I ran CS6 under OSX6.8 it seems to constantly hang, so
much so I was reluctant to move out of LR. Sometimes I would just use
CS5 because CS6 seem to take forever to get anything done. Now with
OSX9, CS6 & Lightroom get things done very quickly indeed, even with
other applications operating in the background.
I was seriously thinking of buying a new computer, with this OSX
upgrade I am a happy camper once more.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

In article ,
says...

In article , Alan Browne says...
OS X is a much simpler system for the user than Windows. S/W
installation is much more straightforward.

Very easy to install SW under MS Windows as well. Just double click on the .exe
installer and the software will do everything for you.

Yeah, I don't get this business of "more straightforward". How much
more straightforward is it than "stick the CD in and wait"? But then
that wasn't good enough for Microsoft so now you just go to the app
store and click "install".

There is no cruft like
anti-virus needed.

There are really no viruses for the Mac? If the Macs had the same market share
as MS Windows, they would face the same virus problems.

There has never been "kruft like anti-virus needed". Just keep the
firewall closed and don't run as administrator and you're pretty well
covered.

But antivirus kruft it big business so they have a vested interest in
scaring people into buying their crap.

MS started at around $140 - per machine). Removing
software from a Mac is (in almost all cases) as simple as dropping the
app in the trash.

Same under MS Windows.

Not really. It's "Control Panel/Programs/ and click on what you want to
remove. Which means that you are not going to accidentally uninstall
anything by dragging the wrong thing to the trash.

There is none of the Microsoft ransom to upgrade the OS every few years
(Apple was $20 and that was good for all the Macs in your house - I have
3 here. Now it is zero. And with my new iMac they threw in iWork for
free too (eg: Apple's "Office" - not as complete as MS Office but quite
good)).

MS Windows costs only 30 Euro and you pay this amount every four years or so.
It's peanuts.

Where do you get a Windows upgrade for 30 euros?

snip

Just not worth the pain. (Vista and Win 8 being two very good reasons
to stay the hell away from Windows - WinXP was very decent and Win 7
(from the little use I've made of it)).

I've used Vista for years without problems and have no switched to Win 8 (with
the Classic Shell, to get an Win XP or 7 user interface), again without
problems. If you get rid of the tiles user interface, Win 8 is fine.

I never switched to 7 either, Vista has been fine for me. I did upgrade
my laptop to 8. I'm working on MCSE right now so I turned the tiles
back on--they take some getting used to but I can see the point. I
still think it's a mistake for a desktop but it's not as bad as I
initially thought it was. Just a lot more clicking around to find
stuff.

On 2013-10-26 23:41:58 +0000, "J. Clarke" said:

In article 2013102615433175251-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom,
says...

On 2013-10-26 22:25:35 +0000, Alfred Molon said:

In article , Sandman says...
Much like a Bugatti Veyron is another "steering wheel-based car" like Ford
Focus and VW Beetle.

But MS Windows 8, 7 and even Vista are not bad OSes. They are good enough and
easy to use. I don't think a Mac OS is that much better.

Then you think wrong.

Even for us Mac users the latest version of OSX, OSX9 the performance
improvement is tangible. It took quite a hefty nudge to get me to move
from OSX 6, or "Snow Leopard" which many had stuck to as a stable
release, and for many had been considered Apple's XP. I am quite
impressed with the performance improvement I have experienced by
upgrading my OSX6 to OSX9.

I think you should actually use, or test drive some of the latest Mac
offerings, you might be surprised. You will have fewer oil stains on
your living room floor from all that tinkering under the hood you
engage in, but you will have a smoother and problem free computing
experience.
...if that is the sort of thing you are looking for, if not continue
with what you are doing.

Would you be kind enough to tell me what problems I am having with
Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 that I would avoid with Apple? Not
problems that you read about in some advertising copy from Apple but
real problems that real people have in the real world?

I have no personal experience with Vista, W7, or W8, so having me
report on problems with those OSes is pointless. I can only take note
of what others say they have experienced with Vista and W8 in
particular. I understand that W7 was/is a pretty stable release, but
again I have nothing to say in that regard due to lack of first hand
experience. Needless to say I have no idea of what problems you might
or might not be experiencing with any edition of Windows you have used.
That said, I have no idea of what you use your computer for, and what
issues you might tolerate which others might perceive as a problem.

I have had experience using Win NT, Win 2000, & XP at work, and I have
always preferred returning to my Mac after work. I also have a copy of
XP professional along with Office 2003 Pro running under VMWare Fusion
for those times I need them, which is seldom these days.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 2013-10-27 00:06:23 +0000, Savageduck said:

On 2013-10-26 23:41:58 +0000, "J. Clarke" said:

In article 2013102615433175251-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom,
says...

On 2013-10-26 22:25:35 +0000, Alfred Molon said:

In article , Sandman says...
Much like a Bugatti Veyron is another "steering wheel-based car" like Ford
Focus and VW Beetle.

But MS Windows 8, 7 and even Vista are not bad OSes. They are good enough and
easy to use. I don't think a Mac OS is that much better.

Then you think wrong.

Even for us Mac users the latest version of OSX, OSX9 the performance
improvement is tangible. It took quite a hefty nudge to get me to move
from OSX 6, or "Snow Leopard" which many had stuck to as a stable
release, and for many had been considered Apple's XP. I am quite
impressed with the performance improvement I have experienced by
upgrading my OSX6 to OSX9.

I think you should actually use, or test drive some of the latest Mac
offerings, you might be surprised. You will have fewer oil stains on
your living room floor from all that tinkering under the hood you
engage in, but you will have a smoother and problem free computing
experience.
...if that is the sort of thing you are looking for, if not continue
with what you are doing.

Would you be kind enough to tell me what problems I am having with
Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 that I would avoid with Apple? Not
problems that you read about in some advertising copy from Apple but
real problems that real people have in the real world?

I have no personal experience with Vista, W7, or W8, so having me
report on problems with those OSes is pointless. I can only take note
of what others say they have experienced with Vista and W8 in
particular. I understand that W7 was/is a pretty stable release, but
again I have nothing to say in that regard due to lack of first hand
experience. Needless to say I have no idea of what problems you might
or might not be experiencing with any edition of Windows you have used.
That said, I have no idea of what you use your computer for, and what
issues you might tolerate which others might perceive as a problem.

I have had experience using Win NT, Win 2000, & XP at work, and I have
always preferred returning to my Mac after work. I also have a copy of
XP professional along with Office 2003 Pro running under VMWare Fusion
for those times I need them, which is seldom these days.

BTW: check with Alan Browne on his opinion of Vista.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

In article , PeterN
wrote:

You are missing the point. They want the option of taking it to a local
guy, the manufacturer's "authorized" place, doing it themselves, or
scrapping it.

most people don't, but for the few who do, they can do that. they just
need a screwdriver and maybe a heat gun. not a big deal for a tinkerer.

just how often do you plan on swapping the battery anyway? it's rated
for 5 *years*. how long do you keep your computers?

I had a HD crash and, while I do know how to replace it and reinstall
the OS, I chose to find a local guy who would do the whole job for me in
a day. I could have sent it to other places, including the authorized HP
dealer, but they would have taken longer.

apple will replace a failed hd in a couple of hours.

most repairs are same day. drop it off early and it's done by lunch.
been there done that. one time i dropped it off in the evening and it
was ready the next morning, when the store opened, but that wasn't an
hd swap.

they don't repair third party add-ons though, so if you bought your own
memory and they see that it works fine without the memory installed,
they fix it by removing the memory and returning both to you. then you
have to go contact the memory vendor and deal with them, who is
probably not local, and they might say their memory meets specs so
there is nothing to fix. been there done that too.

if you bought the computer preconfigured, there is no finger pointing.
it gets fixed.

you can be cheap and save a few bucks to do it yourself but it might
come back to bite you later. it's a choice.

and the new macbooks don't have a hard drive to fail anyway. hard
drives are old school.

You are missing that people want to have options.

you are missing the point that very few care about those options.

In article , Alfred
Molon wrote:

I was
helping someone fix their 2006 laptop the other day - it ran great and
it's 7 years old and has a lot left in it).

It may be running fine, but is totally outdated in terms of processor power.
Why keep it when you can buy a machine which is five times as fast? Nowadays
notebook computers cost very little.

exactly.

In article , Alan Browne
wrote:

Mac sales have been slowing over the past few quarters.

so have pc sales, and it's not due to repairability.

however, apple's sales have slowed less than other companies.

mobile is what's hot and where the growth is. pcs are legacy.

another reason for mac sales slowing were because people were waiting
for the lineup to be updated, which just happened. sales should improve
in the next quarter.

This is mostly
saturation (Macs last a long time and get handed down or sold - I was
helping someone fix their 2006 laptop the other day - it ran great and
it's 7 years old and has a lot left in it).

very few people have computers that old and it's already on borrowed
time.

it can't run mavericks or mountain lion along with any software that
requires either, and depending on when in 2006 (early 2006 were core
duo, not core 2 duo), may not be able to run lion.

it might be ok for casual use, but that's about it.

a $200 chromebook could do the same thing.

And there is of course the adoption of tablets that has dented all PC
sales (including Macs).

that's where the growth is.

The surge in conversions that Apple got when they converted to intel
just around the time that MS did the stupidest thing ever (Vista) has
ended as Apple are making Macs harder and harder to repair. (Though the
Mac mini actually improved a lot in this respect).

By making Macs a little less Johny Ive pretty and easier to do basic
upgrades and repairs I would bet a lot more PC users would consider the
jump to Macs.

you'd lose. half of macs sold are to pc switchers and most people
aren't interested in their own upgrades and repairs.

when apple made easily serviceable macbooks and imacs, it didn't
increase sales. one model macbook had the hard drive in the battery
bay, trivial to swap. later models didn't. sales kept going up, even
though they were less repairable by the end user. they're selling all
they can make.

Macs have been coming down in price in the meantime (see the recent
laptops).

Apple would do very well to make their iMacs and laptops easier for
ordinary users to make basic config changes. It would - IMO -
increase Mac sales to current PC users.

they're already outpacing the industry itself. sales have slowed which
has affected macs too but not as much as other companies.

[1]: Though I had an extended warranty on my first iMac, when the HD
failed (about 3 months before the end of the ext. warranty) Apple Laval
and Montreal quoted me 5 - 10 business days to turn it around AFTER
making a genius appointment to look it over.

that's the exception to the rule.

apple stores elsewhere do it same day, possibly while you wait,
depending on the repair.

i've had the hard drive replaced on my macbook twice, both dropped off
in the morning and done by lunch.

(Though I sent them the diagnostics showing the SMART status - 3rd party
s/w of course since the Mac SMART showed everything as fine).

smart is generally useless. if it says a drive is bad it's bad, but if
it doesn't, then a drive could be bad or it could be good. all smart
does is say it meets a certain set of specs.

drive makers don't want their drives to show up as bad all the time, so
they pass the basic tests. you have to go into the detailed tests,
often with custom undocumented smart commands which the drive makers
don't tell you how to interpret, to find out about possible problems.

it's like the check engine light on a car. when it's on, something is
wrong, but when it's off, you don't know if the car will have a problem
in a day or a month or a year.

That 5 - 10 days was completely unacceptable to me so I bought an HD and
did it myself (45 minutes). Some claim they get much faster service
than that with Apple. But Apple Montreal and Laval (who send repair
jobs to Montreal IAC) are totally useless when it comes to timely
turnaround.

i don't know about apple montreal, but apple usa is same or next day
and that's what i hear in other countries.

unfortunately, your store sucks.

[2] While Macs are more reliable per the various surveys Apple have no
control over HD manufacturers who in the last 10 years have had higher
fail rates than in the past.

true, but apple is moving away from hard drives.

the macbook air, macbook pro retina and new mac pro all use ssd. no
hard drive at all. the imac has a combo hard drive/ssd called a fusion
drive, and that will probably be all ssd in the next revision. the mac
mini didn't get upgraded this past month, and it too might be ssd only
in its next revision.